Love: A Search for Meanings

Love is still as strange to me as it has always been, in my many pursuits to understand it; I have only succeeded in failing again and again. There was a time that the very search for its meanings made me tangle myself in thoughts, so strange that I myself wonder how I ended up brewing these thoughts in my mind. Strange as it may be, I still search for its meanings, even when it had cost me many a things.

In and out, I went of many relationships. Some were a ship wreck from the very beginning while others just went in through a series of unexplainable and unfortunate events before it could finally settle itself into a sense of awkwardness. But, believe me when I say, ‘ Every one of those relations were a lesson learned’. I should also admit that some lessons were much more than what I could have ever bargained for. The sense of tarnish and humiliation that was inevitable, even when I have done it all to keep it afloat, now that’s a wee bit uncomforting.

I beg pardon from all the ladies that had to read these words, and I do accept that not all the women are of the nature I may be discussing. I would also assure you that I have always thought highly of women, but these are a few that I had to face in my small life. There were quite a few women in my life that had come at me in ways that I myself could have never envisioned. The fact is they had in me vested interested that either I have not seen or have cunningly enough hid from my eyes. I have to say this that second one was of higher probabilities. The way those things turned out were particularly humiliating for me for one simple fact, they were not of my doings.

Those were events good enough to make any reasonable man lose faith in love and I do consider myself a reasonable man indeed. The real thing I had no more trust in anyone any more. All that I loved turned out to be more of a wreck and less of any help. The one factor was common, the one thing I could no longer find in any of romantic relationships were ‘Romance’.

Magic do happen when we are least expecting it and it did itself to me. It took me over a dozen years and a couple dozen relationships before I could see it. There it was in all its glory presenting itself to me, an offering from the gods. May be the heavens had enough of my little whining that they finally decided to show me the way. There was a  new day break and there was this girl nothing special , nothing profound, simple and natural. I will tell you made her special, it was not me and it was not love, There do exist a thing called a good heart and I could see one for the first time. She touched me in a way none has ever had, her touch was not of lust nor licentious, but it was of care and it was of sincerity and guess what I was in love again and I still am.

It would be a lie if I say I have not thought of any other girl since her, but this is true no matter whom I saw and whom I fancied and the end of the day she was the one whom I wanted to go back to. She was the only one whom I would care to care about, other were just beautiful to watch but she was beautiful to live with. And hence here I am happily committed and no longer in futile searches of meanings of this that I now believe are meant not to be understood but to be experienced.

Remembering my Great Grand Mother

There was a picture hung by the wall of by old countryside home, it was a gray scale picture of three young girls and a grandmother. At first I wondered who they would be and I kept until one day when I asked my grandfather who those girls were? He held me up in his arms and pointing to the picture with other hand. He told me that, it was my mother and her sisters. I was so shocked for till then I definitely believed that they were born that way and they will remain so for all eternity. If I recall my grandpa’s version of the story I cried, but mind you, I never accepted his claims what so ever.

Years later I came in terms with my mother and her sister who are so big now being so little then, The thing that still caught my attention every time I  looked at that picture is old lady in the picture with silver hair and a grandeur that was there in her face. Her stance had a stature that I seldom saw in people then and before. By the time I procured all the courage to ask who she was it was then again years later. This time I asked my grandpa who would be by then asked all kind of stupid questions by me, who she was. And He said she was a grandmother and I was confused. I already had one grandmother and extended him the same enquiry with an ‘innocent smile’ (in his words). He smiled and said of course you have but she was my mother grandmother so my great grandmother she was!

From then own I heard a million wonderful stories of her and her life, she was never a stereotype and she was always a person I grew up to respect. I never knew her and she was long gone the time I was born. But still I loved her and I loved the picture of hers. There was definitely something special about her and it was evident in the picture. My mother told me many wonderful memories of her’s. She told me of her times with her grandma and how wonderful a person she was. All these stories I used to create for myself the great grandmother who was truly great for me by them. Great as in life as in day dreams she was.

Born in the dark times to a wealthy aristocratic family, she was never the one for stereotypes. When education and profession eluded women, she showed the courage to step up and break down the barriers. She learned and exceled and then became a teacher, the first one from anywhere in her area. But that was not all, my mother always told me how she used to manage her carrier and the large paddy fields she inherited and all her children all alone. She was the most respected one of her lands and the local folks used to come to her for permission. She loved her men as they loved and respected her back.

My mother used to tell whenever gypsises came to the lands near hers they would come ask her permission before they would go anywhere. This is just one among the many stories I heard of my great grandmother. There is one another story that I always loved. My aunt told me once that whenever they went to hers for the summer breaks she would have by then plucked all the mangos in her plantation and hid it neatly under the hay stacks so that they would be ripe and the three of them would go scavenger hunting for mangoes.

I do wish I was there to witness it all. Bound in these concrete jungles of modern times, these little good times are for memories alone and any one who dares to dream of it as anything else is bound to disappointment as always. Those are the good time that will never be back upon us and they are special people who will be born once and if u missed them then you missed them. There is no going back. Yet I wish that was not true.